The Legend of the Sole Survivor
by Festire
Summary: This is the Story of Nathan. A Former U.S. War veteran who finds himself in an impossible position with over whelming odds. Will the Post War Commonwealth prove to be too much for the hardened war vet? Or will he take fate into his own hands?
1. A Better Time

The Legend of the Sole Survivor

A "Fallout 4™" Fanfiction

"A Better Time"

Chapter 1

" _In the year 1945, my great-great grandfather, serving in the army, wondered when he'd get to go home to his wife and the son he'd never seen. He got his wish when the US ended World War II by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki._

 _The World awaited Armageddon; instead, something miraculous happened. We began to use atomic energy not as a weapon, but as a nearly limitless source of power._

 _People enjoyed luxuries once thought the realm of science fiction. Domestic robots, fusion-powered cars, portable computers. But then, in the 21st century, people awoke from the American dream._

 _Years of consumption lead to shortages of every major resource. The entire world unraveled. Peace became a distant memory. It is now the year 2077. We stand on the brink of total war, and I am afraid. For myself, for my wife, for my infant son - because if my time in the army taught me one thing: it's that war, war never changes."_

Nora is an average sized woman of twenty-four years leaning against the door way of the bathroom. With eyes full of love and care she looks at her husband slouched over the sink. Nate is a well-built twenty-five year old man. Nora watches her husband Nate nervously wash his face as he stares into the mirror.

"War never changes" Nate repeats to his reflection.

Grabbing a hand towel from the sink rack he turns from the sink and begins to dry off his face. Nora approaches her husband and embraces him. "You're going to do great at the Veterans Hall tonight".

Nate, who was caught off guard removes the towel from his face, wraps his arms around his wife and plants a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Thank you my love" Nate whispers in her ear as they stand there embracing in front of the mirror. A few moments pass before they release each other.

Nate turns back to the mirror, "I have gone to hell and back for this country. Yet standing in front of a crowed still seems like the most terrifying thing I could do." While Nate was out serving the great nation of the United Sates, Nora was in school studying for a law degree. She could not help but chuckle at the situation her husband was in.

With a smile Nora approaches her husband from behind and places her hand on his shoulder, "I can't believe I'm married to such a wimp." She turns Nate to face her, "You have gone over your speech at least a hundred times in the last hour. All you have to do is get on that stage say what you have to say and get off. You won't be up there for more than five minutes."

Nate looks at his wife with love. "You know, unless people start asking you questions, and before you know it you've been standing up there for thirty minutes. Just don't forget to put your pants on facing forwards.

With a large grin on his face he looks at Nora's Big Beautiful Brown eyes, "You always know exactly what to say don't you?"

Nate grabs Nora by the arm and pulls her closer to him and begins to explore her body with the other. Before Nate could get Nora's top off, they hear their baby Shawn begin to cry in the room next to them.

Nora Smiles and reluctantly pulls herself away from her husband. "Hey calm down, Now's not the time for that."

Nate shuts off the water to the sink as their domestic robot floats its way towards Shawn's room. "Aww sounds like someone has a Stinky!" Codsworth is a General Atomics Mr. Handy Robot that is comprised of a sphere for a body, three tactical like arms, three camera like eyes, and a rocket like thruster to keep it suspended in midair.

Codsworth stops at the restroom door and says "I shall attend to young Shawn!"

Nate and Nora both make their way to the living room where Nate grabs hold of his coffee and Nora takes hold of the Boston Bugle Newspaper. Nora looks up at Nate, "You know, I was nervous at first but Codsworth is really good with Shawn."

Nate looks at his wife from the couch and smirks, "I told you it was worth every penny. I only get the best for Boston's finest."

Nora with a smile joins him to watch the news. On the black and white screen the news anchor taps his paperwork on his desk, "On the Island of Mambajao the nights are cold, unseasonably so for Southeast Asia. But For the Fifth Infantry, that's as comfortable as an autumn jamboree, All the Easier for our mechanized hellcats to drive the screaming Commie meamies right into the Bohol Sea."

The doorbell rings and Nora looks at her husband. "Can you get that? It's probably that salesman, he comes for you every day." Nate shifts in his seat and says, "I have a better idea, why don't I go prepare some bottles for Shawn and you handle him."

Nora gets up and pulls her husband from the coach by the arm, "Oh no, not again. It's time for you to grow a set and go talk to him."

Nate, playfully disappointed, walks over to the door and pulls it open. "Good morning! Vault-Tec Calling!" the salesman says as he tips his hat stepping closer to Nate.

"Morning, can I help you with something?" Nate says clearly unimpressed.

The sales man swallows and continues, "You can't begin to know how happy I am to finally speak with you! I've been trying for days. It's a matter of up most urgency I assure you!"

Nate with a relaxed demeanor responds, "What's so important?"

The Vault-Tec Representative looking almost surprised and responds in a confidant tone, "Why nothing less than your entire future! If you haven't noticed sir, this county has gone to heck in a handbasket! If you'll excuse my language. The Big KABOOM is. . . It's inevitable I'm afraid . . . and coming sooner than you may think! If you catch my meaning."

Nate lets out a huff and begins to close the door, and the Representative stops the door with his foot. Both surprised and annoyed, Nate swings the door wide open ready to start yelling at the representative but is cut off just as quickly.

"Now I know you're a busy fellow so I won't take up much of your time." The representative lowers his head. "Time being a, hmm. . . Precious commodity." He picks his head up and looks Nate in the eyes and continues, "I'm here today to tell you because of your family's service to our country." The representative is boasting at this point. "You have been preselected for entrance into the local Vault." With a 'Ta-da' presence the representative continues, "Vault One Eleven!"

Intrigued by these words Nate asks, "So let me get this straight, my family and I get a free ride into the vault program?"

The representative is clearly excited, "Of course! Minus your robot naturally. In fact you're already cleared for entrance! It's just a matter of verifying some information." The representative hands Nate a clipboard and pen.

"Don't want there to be any hold ups in the unforeseen event of . . . heh heh . . . total atomic annihilation. Won't take but a moment."

Nate grins, "Well now I can't wait for the world to end!"

The rep. with wide eyes says, "Ha-ha! That's the spirit!" Nate signs his name at the bottom of the form and hands it back to the representative.

"Wonderful! That's everything, I'm just going to walk this over to the vault! Congratulations on be prepared for the future!"

Nate closes the door, "Well that was something special."

Nora looks up and smiles, "Hey its peace of mind. That's worth a little paper work right?"

Nate smiles and kisses his wife, "For you and Shawn no price is to high!"

Nora laughs, "Good answer.

Nate smiles, "I have my moments!"

Codsworth hovers his way down the hall and turns to address Nora. "Mrs. Nora young Shawn has been changed but he absolutely refuses to calm down. Perhaps you could use some of that paternal affection you humans seem to be so good at." Nate kisses his wife. "You heard him my love, let's go check on our son."

Nate walks over to Shawn's crib and picks him up. He begins to rock his son back and forth in an attempt to calm him down. Nora walks up behind Nate and puts her hand on her son's forehead to help comfort him.

After a short wile of caring for their son, Shawn finally quiets down. Shawn looks up at his dad and smiles before closing his eyes and falling asleep. "There . . . much better."

Nora looks at her husband still cradling their son, "Hey, I was thinking that we could go down to the park before we head out to the Veterans Hall. Should help ease your mind."

Nate looks at his wife and smiles, "I would love that. Maybe we could . . ." Before Nate finishes his sentence Codsworth hovers into the room. Nora looks at Codsworth confused," what's wrong Codsworth?" In a more worried tone "Sir, Mum, you should follow me to the living room there is something you and Nate need to see" Nora, along with Nate and Shawn in hand, troublingly followed Codsworth to the living room.

The news anchor has taken on a much more shallow tone. "Yes . . . we have confirmed reports, that's confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. . . Oh my god. . ." The station cut out and the words "No signal" flash on the screen.

Nate looks at his wife with a concerned look just as sirens start to go off all over Boston. Nora looks at her husband with more than a terrified expression. "Oh my god, WE NEED TO GET TO THE VAULT! NOW!" Nate grabs Nora's hand, holds Shawn in his free arm and bursts out of the front door.

What they see as soon as they leave their house is pure pandemonium. Echoing across the neighborhood are sirens and a message that says, "RESIDENTS OF SANCTUARY HILLS, IF YOU ARE REGISTERD, EVACUATE TO VAULT ONE ELEVEN IMMEDIATELY!"

Nate, with Shawn in one hand and virtually dragging Nora in the other, he makes his way up the hill that leads to the Vault elevator. As Nate approaches the top of the hill he can hear screaming. A man's voice screams, "Why won't you let us in?" Followed by a woman's voice, "Who cares if we aren't on the list? We're going to die out here!"

Nate steps through the crowd and hears a familiar voice, "What do you mean I'm not on the list? I AM VAULT TECH!"

The soldier responds in an annoyed tone, "I'm sorry sir, but you aren't on the list. I can't let you in!"

The Vault Tech representative stood his ground and re-affirmed himself. "OH IM GOING IN! YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"

A pretty stupid move since there are two solders standing behind the gate that are adorned in Military issue T-60 Power Armor, both armed with mini guns. One of them begins to spool up is mini gun and yells in a muffled walkie-talkie voice. "SIR, PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE GATE!"

The Vault Tech representative instantly retreated with arms in the air. "Whoa! Whoa! Ok you have maid your point!" The Representative turns and runs down the hill yelling, "IM REPORTING THIIIIIISSS!"

Nate approaches the guard and again the same muffled voice blasts from behind the guard, "IF YOU ARE IN THE PROGRAM PLEASE STEP FORWARD, OTHERWISE CLEAR THE AREA!"

The guard addresses Nate with the same attitude he gave the representative, "Are you in the program?"

Nate almost lost his footing but responded, "Yes, we are on the list we need get in!"

The guard studies him and continues, "One Infant. . . Adult mail. . . Adult female. . . Go ahead in." Nate rushes past the guard and Nora in a rushed tone says, "Thank you!"

They follow a man that is wearing a blue jumpsuit laced with golden lining. "What is going to happen to everyone behind the gate?" Nora exclaims.

The man in Blue responded, "We're doing everything we can now come on! Get on the platform in the center!" Nate and family obeyed and stood on a large platform that is in the shape of a gear. The man in blue ran over to what looked like a guard station and yelled, "We need to send them down, NOW!"

A very large grinding noise erupted from beneath Nate and Nora, and the platform began to lower itself. Nate begins to cradle his wife and Nora says to him, "I love you" Nate kisses his wife's forehead and responds, "I love you too, both of you!"

In the distance there is an eruption that flooded the afternoon sky with blinding light. The earth began to shake and crumble around them. Heat washed over the land, cleansing it of all known life. The residence of Sanctuary Hills all caught a glimpse of the magnificent and terrifying mushroom cloud that has risen high enough to blot out the sun. Just as the elevator shut above them they hear the loudest "Bang" any of them have ever had the displeasure of hearing. The elevator shaft echoed with a "CLUNG" as the doors sealed above them, waking Shawn up from his deep sleep.

"Oh my god everything is gone isn't it?" One of the residence said as he paces across the elevator. The elevator lowered itself with the sound of metal grinding on metal. Nate and Nora are both siting in the middle of the elevator trying to keep their son from crying.

The residence of sanctuary hills are all visibly shaken. After an unusually long ride, the elevator finally came to a stop. Taking a moment to get on their feet, the residence were presented with a cave entry way that has scaffolding that leads up to a large concrete wall with an opening that resembles the shape of a Gear. "Hello! Welcome to your new home! A better future underground!"

"Everybody please, step off the elevator and head up the stairs in an orderly fashion." At the bottom of the scaffolding there is a man flanked by two security guards. The man is adorned with bright blue jumpsuit lined with gilded stripes along the front zipper and above the brown belt, on the back of the suit is the number "111" written in gilded lacing. The guards wear the same jumpsuit except they have on tan ballistic vests and bright blue security helmets.

Nate let go a sigh of relief. "We made it." Nora simply follows her husband off the elevator and up the stairs into a large screening area. As they pass the door a series of buzzes go off. The residents file in one after the other and stop to receive their very own jump suits.

The man standing at the end of the screening room is dressed in a white trench lab coat. Nate and family approach the scientist. "Please head through these doors and dress yourselves into your new attire" The man directed them towards a locker room that all the other new vault residence were herded into.

Nate helps his wife slip into the blue jumpsuit. He stopped to take in the stunning view of his wife as she stood in front of him in the skin tight jumpsuit. "You are so beautiful, how did I ever get so lucky to be with someone like you?"

Nora responded with a kiss, but Nate could feel tears streaming down her face. "This is our new home now." Nate has his arms wrapped around Nora as she cradles their son. "Hey, at least you don't have to worry about that speech of yours." Nate could only put on a faint smile as he could tell she is just trying to cope with everything.

The Scientist walked into the locker room. "Ah, it looks like we are all ready. If everyone could please follow me down to the detox chamber. We can start on getting everyone situated into your new home." The residents followed the scientist out into the hall. "Oh you're going to love it here! This is one of our most advanced facilities. Not that the others aren't great mind you."

Nora walking just a few paces behind the Scientist," So how long are we going to be down here?" The scientist stopped and looked at the family he was escorting. "Well, we will be going over all that in orientation. There are just a few medical items that we need to get through first." The Scientist turned to continue walking down the hall. They enter a room that is lined with large white pods.

The scientist stops at the end of the chamber to address the residents, "Everyone please step into the decontamination pods." Shawn began to cry and Nora immediately started rocking him back and forth.

Nate came up to his son. "Hey there buddy. Listen to daddy ok." feeling his dads presence he Shawn became calm once again. "I'll be right here with you. Daddy is just going over there to get all cleaned up, ok?" Nate leans in and kisses Shawn's forehead. "Besides, your mommy will take good care of you."

"Let's move along everyone. We have a lot of items to take care of once the procedure is complete." All the residents prop themselves into their pods as the sound of compressed air echoes throughout the room. Nate kisses his wife and pulls his hand away from Shawn's head. Nora turns and climbs into her pod as Nate finishes adjusting himself in the seat. The pod door came down and over sealing itself shut.

Nate peers out his pod's window and into Nora's window. He let out a semi relaxed sigh. "It's time for a whole new life."

The sound of pressurizing air began to echo in the pod. A woman's voice came over the intercom above Nates head.

" _Resident secure. . . Occupant vitals: Normal. Procedure complete in . . ."_

Nate sits back and begins to relax his muscles.

" _Five. . . .Four . . ."_

The air around him begins to freeze.

" _Threeee. . . . . . Twwoooo. . . . . . . oooonnnneeeeee. . ."_


	2. Out of Time

"Out of Time"

Chapter 2

" _Manual override initiated. . . Cryogenic stasis suspended."_

"Where am I?" Nate is disoriented but conscious. He wipes away the fog from his pod's window when a woman in a blue hazard suit approaches Nora's pod. "This is the one."

A bald man wearing a metal brace around his left arm crosses in front of Nate's pod. "Open in it"

The woman lifts a lever on the side of Nora's pod and the sound of depressurizing air echoes through the vault.

"WHAAAHAAA" Shawn's crying pierced the silence of the vault.

Nora slouches over with Shawn in her arms. "Is it over? Are we okay?" Nora askes her awakeners.

The bald man steppes forward. "Almost, everything's going to be fine."

The woman in the hazard suite steps closer to Nora and reaches for Shawn. Witch only made Shawn cry louder. Nora began to tug her son away, "No, wait no I've got him!" The woman in the hazard suit simply tugs back. Nate though still disoriented began to bang on the glass of his pod in a futile attempt to get the strangers attention.

The bald man raises his right hand, and points his gun strait at Nora's head. "Let the boy go! I'm only going to tell you once!"

Nora having gained full consciousness began to tug hard on her son, this time she kicks the woman in the hazed suite. "I'M NOT GIVING YOU SHAWN!"

"BANG!" The sound pierces Nate's ears as he watches his wife fall back into her pod. "NOO!" Nate still shivering, weak and disoriented, began to bang on the glass in a desperate attempt to shatter it. "NO! NO! NO! NO!"

"God damn it. Get the kid out of here, and let's go. . ." The man approaches Nates pod. "At least we still have the back up." Nate peers deep into the man's eyes as he begins to freeze. The man has a deep scar that runs over his left eye.

" _Cryogenic stasis re-initialized."_

Raiders spool up for another attack on the Minutemen held up at the Museum of Freedom.

"Colonel Hollis! They're coming back!" The sound of gun fire erupts behind the Minuteman.

"Everyone get to your positions! We can't let them get into the museum!" Colonel Hollis burst out from the church that stands next to the museum.

Just outside the museum seven Minutemen take up their fighting positions as their left flank gets peppered with ballistic fire. The Minutemen had set up a perimeter made up of sand bags, car parts and other junk that could stand up on its own.

The raiders advancing on the road next to the church take cover behind a burned down building and cars that litter the road. Jim, one of the Minutemen yelled out, "HEY! They're coming up the main road!"

More raiders join in the fight and are forced to take cover as the Minutemen return fire. "Preston get the hell ou . . ." a bullet hit the Minuteman on the left side of his head painting the wall of the church red. Preston grabs his laser musket and darts out from cover of the sand bags.

He takes up a position just in front of the museum and set up behind a sheet metal barricade. He brakes cover and fires his musket into the chest of one of the raiders coming from the church road, completely disintegrating his torso. "Hollis! The left side is down!"

" _Critical failure is cryogenic array."_

 _"All vault residents must vacate immediately."_

Nate coughs violently as he struggles for air. He leans up against the pod door, and since it has come loose the door flings open making him fall face first onto the floor. He barely catches his breath when he suddenly realizes, "NORA!" He rushes over to his wife's pod, "Come on COME ON! WHERE IS IT?" He fumbles around for few seconds before finding the lever, and giving it a violent jerk.

The pod's door pops open with the sound of compressed air. Nate's heart sinks as he takes in his worst fears. His wife is still covered in ice crystals, his son gone and just above her left eye is a bullet hole. Her blood has frozen over her face. "Oh god . . . no." He began as he reaches in and takes hold of Nora. "You're ok baby, come on." With his wife in his arms he falls back up against the pod and slides down onto the ground.

He brushes away her frozen hair and looks into her lifeless eyes. "Come on baby, please." He rocks here back and forth still in disbelief that she is gone. ". . . . Please wake up . . . Please" Nate's sobs turns into wails, and his face is now drenched in tears. " . . . Please . . . Don't go . . . Please baby, come back . . . Please, I need you. . . "

He can't bring himself to stand. The air around him is cold, damp, and the chamber they lay in is quiet save for Nate and his cries of desperation. He closes her eyes and just sits there rocking back and forth with Nora held close to his face. "Please baby . . . I don't know what to do without you . . . please . . . please, come back. . . "

" _Critical failure is cryogenic array."_

" _All vault residents must vacate immediately."_

Back at the museum one of the raiders shoots out from cover, "No! You will pay for that!" The raider proceeds to charge into the perimeter and head straight for Preston. Hollis turns and fires his musket blowing the raiders head off his shoulders.

Raiders continue to appear from both sides as they lay down fire on the six remaining soldiers. Jim joins Preston on the left flank, "We can't hold out like this for much longer."

The raiders have the Minutemen pinned down and out gunned. "I know, just keep fighting!"

The duo come out form cover and fire their muskets into the charging raiders turning one to ash and ripping the arm off another. "You and I both know there is no one coming!" Jim takes aim with his musket and scores another hit on a raider making a move for a new firing position.

Sam darts from cover and adds her laser fire to the church road. "They have us pinned at the main road. Hollis, Carmen and Bill have them on their toes but if we can't get rid of the left flank we are done for."

Preston fires his musket into the gut of another raider. "Hollis! We need to make a move! NOW!"

Hollis removes a detonator from under his coat and tosses it to Preston. "Wait until they are in front of the church and bury them!"

The explosion can be heard for miles as the tower of the church comes crashing down onto the road instantly killing five raiders. The few raiders on the other side of the ruble scramble as they take in the scene of the now completely blocked road.

"Preston, Sam, Jim! Get over here, more raider just showed up on the right!"

The trio turn their attention to the right flank. Just as they break from cover a .308 caliber round blows out Sam's chest. "NO SAM!" Horrified Jim charges towards the raiders.

Preston spots what had just happened behind him. "No Jim, wait!" Too late, Jim was already over the perimeter and headed towards the raider with the .308 hunting rifle. One raider jumped in front of him. Jim plunged his bayonet into the raiders gut, and ripped it out with a violent jerk. He turns and continues his assault into the group of raiders.

Preston fires his musket at a raider coming up behind Jim and reduces her to ash. Jim draws his machete and charges at Sam's killer. The raider pulls out a chainsaw riper and swings it at Jim's head. He quickly dodges the attack with a slide and slits the raider's Achilles tendon as he slides past him.

The raider lets out a blood curdling scream and falls onto the ground. Jim approaches the raider and plunges his machete into the raider's throat. Jim makes his way back to the perimeter and a .308 round blows through the right side of Jim's skull. His body gets peppered buy more bullets before collapsing to the ground. "JIIIIIMMMM!" Horrified, Preston fires his laser musket at the now exposed raider and blows off the top of his head.

With all the raiders on the right dispatched, Preston joins Hollis, Carmen, and Bill on the main road.

The raider leader Gristle steps out,

 _"Everyone fall back!"_

Nate doesn't know how long he lay there with his wife. He lifts his head just enough for the light to reflect off of her wedding ring. With his cheeks drenched in tears, he got up and carefully places his wife back into her pod. "I will find who did this . . . and I'm going to get Shawn back." He kisses his wife's forehead, "I promise, I'll make them pay for this." Nate closed the pod door and dries off his face.

Nate makes his way through the door of the cryo chamber. "Hello! Is anyone there?" He continues down the corridor and enters a room to his left. This room is lined with the same pods as the Chamber Nate just left. After a quick search of the terminal at the far end of the room he discovers that every single resident held in these pods are deceased. "Am. . . Am I the only one left? . . . HELLO! . . . ANYONE?"

Nate leaves the room and makes his way through a corridor on the right since the door to the screening room is sealed. When he makes it to the reactor room a cockroach the size of a small dog charges and jumps up towards Nates chest. Quickly realizing what is going on, he swings his arm and knocks the roach to the ground. The roach recovers and charges at Nate again. This time Nate is ready and he plunges his foot right into the back of the insect "CHRUNCH."

"What the hell was that?" He brushes himself off and makes his way to the reactor. At the end of the reactor he pauses at what looks like a make shift guard post. "Holly shit." At his feet is a skeleton wearing a blue jumpsuit. "What the hell happed here?" He moves past the check point and makes his way into a large office. At the desk is a skeleton wearing a white lab coat.

He notices a 10mm pistol in the skeletons hand and takes hold of it. The pistol is loaded with 11 rounds. On the desk is a clip with 12 rounds and a holster. He straps the holster around his waist and places the pistol in it. After a quick search through the terminal on the desk, Nate discovers that the vault was nothing more than a science experiment. To think of himself as a lab rat is not only sickening but infuriating. His Family is in shambles all because Vault Tech wanted to see what would happen to people that have been frozen for an extended period of time.

He finds personal files the overseer of the vault had typed up. The last entry explains that there was a mutiny due to supply shortages. Judging by the state of the vault, his best guess is that it was bloody.

He decides to look for anything else that may be useful to him. "Bingo!" Nate exclaims as he pulls out a box labeled "Pip Boy 2,000". He places the portable computer on his left wrist and Clears the dust away from the screen. Nate powers it on and the screen starts flooding with lines of text. Shortly after, the Pip Boy displays another set of words:

" _New user detected."_

" _Initializing user pairing."_

" _Pairing complete."_

Not knowing what to make of it he returns to the terminal and selects the file labeled "Escape tunnel." A door on the far end of the office pops open.

Nate runs into another large roach but makes quick work of it. He then makes his way to the screening room at the end of the tunnel.

Nate searches the control board to the right of the large door and spots a socket in the control panel in front of him labeled, "Coupler Ignition." He pulls the plug from his Pip Boy and plugs it into the socket. The words "Vault Door Remote Access Ready." flash on the screen. He activates the coupler and alarms start blaring across the vault.

" _Vault door cycling sequence initiated. . . Please stand back!"_

Nate takes a step back as the giant cog door is pulled out of the wall and rolled out to the right. He steps out onto the scaffolding and down to the elevator. Looking back at the vault he whispers to himself. "I'm going to find our son. . . I promise." He takes in a deep breath and steps onto the elevator.

" _Enjoy your return to the surface!"_

 _And thank you for choosing Vault Tech!"_

5


	3. When Freedom Calls

Chapter 3

"When Freedom Calls"

Nothing could have prepared Nate for what he is now looking at. The landscape around him is completely dead and barren. The trees around the landscape are leafless and charred. It is as if there are no signs of life anywhere. The neighborhood of sanctuary is completely demolished, however some homes appear to be mostly intact. At the bottom of the hill lay the skeletons of the people he can only guess were once the scared residents of Sanctuary Hills.

Nate approaches his home with only one thing in mind, "Who would have a reason to take my son?" The more Nate thinks about it the less sense it makes.

As he approaches his home a .32 round hits Nate's right leg. He lets out a scream, and the raider puts his gun to Nates head, "Hey Wolfgang! I got something you're going to want to see!"

Wolfgang approaches the raider, "Good work. This one is well-fed, and it looks like he came from a nearby vault."

"What makes you say that boss?" Wolfgang sends the raider to the ground with a well-placed punch in the gut.

"You moron, He has on one of those blue jumpsuits." Wolfgang looks at Nate. "Yes this one will be worth a whole heap of caps." Nate is now fully aware of his situation, but unable to do anything with the pain in his leg, and the four raiders surrounding him. "We can sell him to the raider gang at Corvega."

Wolfgang confiscates Nate's .10mm pistol and hands it to the raider wielding a bat. Nate let out a pain filled grunt and with one swift motion of his rifle Wolfgang renders Nate unconscious.

 _"Now let's head out, I heard those Coverage raiders are attacking a group of nobodies from down south!"_

Back at the museum of freedom, night begins to creep over the horizon. Most of their day was spent cleaning the bodies out from the perimeter in front of the museum. The stench of death hangs over the exhausted fighters like a dark shroud.

Bill pulls the last body over to the gas covered pile and Hollis sets it ablaze with his last cigarette. With a somber tone Hollis addresses Bill. "Go get Preston out here. He and Carman will take first watch."

Carman takes up over watch on the balcony overlooking the road wile Preston takes the watch on the road. Fortunately for them the road to the left of the museum is completely blocked by the collapsed church tower. Preston joins Hollis out on the road, "Hollis, it's been three days. Do you really think it was a smart idea to send them out for supplies?"

Hollis takes a deep breath. "After that last raider attack, I was beginning to ask myself the same thing." Preston bows his head. "But we can't dwell on that right now. Bill and I will relieve you two in a few hours."

They stand and Hollis turns towards the door of the museum. "Hollis, we can't stay here forever." Hollis cocks his head and returns a nod before closing the museum door behind him.

Later that night Bill steps out onto the street and approaches Preston who is keeping watch over the road. "Any movement?"

"No." Preston looks at Bill. "This doesn't make sense. Those raiders have been chasing us ever since we left Lexington." Preston lowers his head.

"It doesn't have to. All they look for is an easy meal, and something fun to do." Bill takes a swig from his canteen. "Look The people in there are counting on us to keep them safe."

Preston lets out a sigh. "Well, we've been doing a pretty lousy job. Is Hollis up yet?"

Bill takes another swig, "No. Couldn't sleep so I thought I'd . . ."

Carmen whistles from the balcony. "We have movement, four raiders. West end of the road."

Preston takes a look through his binoculars confirming the call. "Looks like they are dragging a civilian with them."

"So? Looks like some Waste lander let themselves get captured." Bill responds nonchalantly.

"We have to go help him!" Preston blurts out.

Bill chokes on his canteen. "Are you nuts? The last thing we need is for you to try and be some sort of hero. Besides you I both know he is as good as dead."

Taking offence to Bill's response Preston Jumps over the perimeter. "Bill, we joined the minutemen to help people and right now that man needs our help!"

Preston darts off along the buildings on the right. Bill jumps the perimeter to follow. Keeping his voice just above a whisper he responds, "The people HERE need our help Preston!"

Ignoring his comrade Preston follows the four raiders until they come up to a redbrick building just around the street corner. There are two sentries keeping watch just outside. Bill grabs Preston by the shoulder and whispers, "Alright we know where they took him, now let's go back before more of them show up."

Preston waits for the sentries to let the group through the door and he quietly makes his way towards the collapsed structure behind the red building. Bill scrambles to keep up with him.

The duo creep through the structure and out of the rear collapsed wall.

Preston stops at a door on the back of the red building and turns to look at Bill, "Remember when we first got here? Hollis had us search all these building for supplies?

Bill acknowledges with a worried nod.

Preston continues, "This is one of the buildings Jim and I ransacked. Through this door is a staircase blocked by ruble. We can use that to get the high ground on them."

Bill let out a sigh, "Then what? We have no idea how many raiders we are dealing with."

"We know there are at least six raiders. Besides . . ." Preston reaches into his coat, and removes two M84 flash bang grenades, "I nabbed these from the old military checkpoint on the way here from Jamaica Plain." Preston hands one to Bill.

Bill nods.

 _"Alright this just might work."_

Nate begins to gain consciousness as Wolfgang's crew drag him through the door of the red building.

A tall dark man wearing a raider harness come out from behind a pile of rubble. He is covered in dirt and grime from head to toe. Wolfgang approaches the man with his arms extended. The raiders that surround the walls tense up. "Gristle my main man! It's been a long time!"

"Cut to the chase mutt." Gristle stands at the top of the mound of rubble with arms crossed.

Wolfgang retreats, "Well I'm here as always ready to strike a bargain my friend! I know how you guys are always in the market for huge payouts!"

Gristle raises an eyebrow "This better be good Wolfgang, our last deal didn't go so well."

He signals for his group to drag Nate in. "We found this one scavenging the town just north of here."

Gristle instantly recognizes the blue jumpsuit. "Is he from 81?"

"No. To far north from their usual parties. But this just might be the key to starting up your own gang!" Gristle begins to show a slight grin.

"Just imagine it. You will have access to clean water and a large food supply! If you make me an offer I just might sell him to you."

"You will take twenty caps" Gristle spits out.

Wolfgang grows a deep frown. "What?! This guy is worth way more than that! I'll get more selling him to. . ."

Gristle raises his arm and all the raiders in the room aim their guns at Wolfgang and his crew. Gristle is now walking slowly circling around Wolfgang. "Let me say that again. You will take ten caps." Gristle stops to put his face to Wolfgang's, "And I won't hang your carcass off the Corvega overpass."

The room gets eerily quiet, and Nate hears the equally grim sound of a grenade hitting the floor.

"BANG"

Everyone in the room is blinded. Chaos erupts as both Gristle's and Wolfgang's crews fire blindly in all directions. It is literally blind luck that Nate gets tossed right behind an over turned desk.

Preston fires his laser musket at full charge through the head of one raider and into the chest of another reducing both to ash. Bill fires his musket into the gut of a female raider sending her to the ground. Wolfgang is just barely able to gain his composure before he manages to drag himself out of the building.

One raider manages to yell out, "They are above us!" and though disoriented Gristle blindly fires his pipe rifle in the direction of opposing fire as he tries to get to cover.

Bill takes another shot and severs a raiders arm. "Preston, the leader is over behind that pile of rubble." He removes his Flash bang and tosses it down into the mess as more bullets pepper their position.

Nate struggles to lift himself over the desk when he sees it. He lets out a sigh, "This world can officially bite my ass." The flash bang explodes sending Nate to ground, and the exchange of fire continues for a few more moments.

Preston jumps down first and scans the room. In the corner of the room he spots Gristle cradling the wound in his abdomen. Preston approaches the raider leader and places the muzzle of his musket to Gristles head. 'Yup, this is for sure the worst deal yet Wolfgang. . .'

Preston looks Gristle in the eye, "This is for all those lives you have taken." At full charge Preston pulls the trigger and Gristles head is atomized.

Bill looks around the room, "Preston, I think we may have killed your blue friend." Preston looks around the room and sees the man in the blue jumpsuit stumbling to the ground.

Preston approaches the disoriented Nate, takes a knee and places his hand on his shoulder. "If you're going to kill me just do it already."

"The name is Preston Garvey, This is Bill, Commonwealth Minutemen."

"Come on wha . . ?" Nate passes out due to the blood lose in his leg.

Preston and Bill carry Nate back to the museum stretcher style.

Hollis jumps over the perimeter and helps bring Nate into the museum.

 _"Are you boys out of your god damn mind? You guys are lucky I'm short on men!"_

Bill stays outside for night watch while Hollis and Preston bring Nate into the Museum. They set him down on the floor next to a support column. "Preston go wake Marcy, and bring a med kit."

Nate stirs awake still disoriented, "Where, where am I?"

Hollis squats down in front of him, "This is the Museum of Freedom, and from what Bill told me, you are very lucky to be alive."

Nate turns to look at Hollis, This man bears a striking resemblance to George Washington. His hair is black and thinning at the top and is dressed in a long tattered navy blue coat.

"So you guys are minutemen?" Nate breaths out.

Hollis flashes a grin. "That's right, helping people at a minutes notice. That's the idea at least. What's your name?"

"Nathan. . . Nathan Adams" he says as he regains his awareness.

Preston returns with Marcy in pursuit. "So you're a vault dweller? Bet you wish you'd never left your cushy vault huh? Now bite down on this." Marcy shoves a piece of cloth into Nates mouth. "This is going to hurt. . . A lot."

Hollis stands, "I better go take over for Carmen. Don't worry. Marcy will take care of you." He turns to Preston and orders him, "Go check on the rest and help Marcy with Nate before you turn in."

Preston holds Nate's leg down as Marcy injects him with Med-x and begins to dig around in the leg for the bullet. All the while Nate bites down on the rag. Even though his leg is numbed it wasn't a large enough dose to completely dull the excruciating pain. After a short while she is able to dislodge the projectile and inject Nate's leg with a stimpack. "All done, you can scream now." Nate spits the rag out of his mouth and lets out a pain filled scream.

Marcy's son joins them as she begins to clean Nate's leg. "Hey kido, I thought I told you to stay upstairs."

Her son sits cross legged next to her, "I couldn't sleep. Maybe I can help you take care of the blue man?"

Marcy kisses her son's forehead, "Sweetie you are too kind."

Preston squats down to the kid's height, "Hey, run upstairs and bring this man something to eat."

The kid quickly jumps to his feet and returns an exaggerated solute. "Yes sir!"

Nate lets out a chuckle and looks at Marcy, "What's his name?"

Marcy wipes the blood off her hands with a rag and tosses it aside. She then begins to stitch up Nates leg. "His name is Kyle. He gets his eccentric behavior from his father."

Nate rubs his head where Wolfgang struck him, "Where is his father now?"

Marcy stops mid stitch and bows her head, "He was killed when we were attacked in Lexington. The raiders there, they just . . ." Marcy starts to choke up as she recants those events.

Nate is reminded of his own situation. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . . I understand."

Marcy wipes away her tears, "I. . . I'm sorry to hear that. Jun was a kind hearted man. He always had a knack for seeing the good in people." Marcy ties up the last stitch and sits back on her legs.

Nate can't help but empathies with her. He knows exactly how she feels loosing someone like that. He lets out a sigh, "My wife she was . . . She was beautiful . . ."

He pauses, "They, were beautiful."

Marcy lifts her head, "They?"

Nate instantly regrets it, "My son, someone took him. I don't know who they are and I don't know why. When we heard the bombs were coming we just ran. We made it to the vault and they stuck us inside these pods." Nate pauses and swallows the not in his throat. "Next thing I know I'm waking up to a gun shot."

Marcy has her hand over her mouth. She know his pain, more than she would like.

"I just can't think of any reason why someone would take my son." Nate sighed.

Preston and Marcy freeze and say in unison, "Bombs?"

Marcy continues, "What bombs? What are you talking about?"

Nate bewildered by the question. "You know. The nuke that was dropped on top of Boston?"

Preston takes a step forward and gets down to eye level with Nate, "There hasn't been a nuclear detonation in over two hundred years."


	4. The Sight

Chapter 4

"The Sight"

Nate wakes the next morning in a haze hoping that everything was just a dream. As he lay on the floor an elderly woman dressed in a bright blue blazer with a yellow bead necklace sitting in a chair across the room addresses him, "Carful kid I feel something is out there, and it ain't no raider." He rubs his eyes and when they adjust he finds a boy staring at him with curiosity.

"Are you really two hundred years old mister?" Marcy's son Kyle scoots forward to get a better look at the man in blue. "If you are. You look pretty good for a ghoul." Marcy walks up behind her son. Standing next to her is a man wearing blue coveralls.

"Man you look like someone who's seen a ghost." The man holds out his hand. "The name's Sturges."

Nate takes his hand, "I'm Nathan."

Marcy steps forward and hands him a bowl. "Here, it's not exactly the most luxurious meal, but it'll fill you up."

One sniff of the bowl's contents is enough to churn up his innards. Marcy presents a grin. 'This man is defiantly not from around here.' "It tastes better than it smells." Nate takes a mouthful from the bowl and gags before spiting it out. "Alright, alright, it's bad no need to slander my cooking."

Though hesitant at first he takes another mouthful and forces it down. "So, Preston tells me he found you being dragged along by raiders. You're lucky, most folk out here steer clear of them." Nate places down the bowl indicating his satisfaction with the meal.

"This is just a lot to take in." Nate hangs his head. "When I left the vault I knew I was out for a while, but two hundred years? Never in my wildest dreams . . ." He let the sentence trail off.

"This world isn't yours is it kid?" Nate raises his head, "That's right kid, I saw you leave that ice box."

Nate now looks confused in the direction of the voice, "I don't believe I told you about . . ."

"Old Mama Murphy can see a bit of what was and will be, and even what is, right now." She let loose a small grin.

Marcy blocks his view of Mama Murphy. "Don't pay any attention to her. She is crazier than a bag of mole rats." Marcy tosses patched blue jeans, a gray flannel shirt, and a dark tan patched jacket into Nates lap. "Put this on. You'll be spotted a mile away in that blue jump suit."

Sturges places his hand on Marcy's shoulder. "I'll be on the first floor cleaning things up. Why don't you come down there when you're ready?" Nate nods in agreement, and Sturges walks out of the room.

Most of their day is spent scavenging the town and looting the bodies of the dead raiders. Though the idea of looting off a corps strikes a chord with Nate, he knows that in these situations it is all too necessary for survival. Hollis and the rest of the minutemen make it a point to patrol the area around the building every hour.

After a few hours of scavenging Nate retreats back into the museum. He stands staring at the broken mirror in the bathroom, taking in the ghost returning the stare. In addition to the cloths Marcy gave him. He has a leather chest strap and belt he grabbed off one of the dead raiders. His 10mm pistol is in a holster on his right leg, an old hunting rifle is strapped around his shoulder, and his wedding ring on his left ring finger. His Pipboy's exterior has sustained some damage but otherwise, it's still functional.

He joins the rest of the group in the lobby of the museum. Marcy is sitting with her son and Mama Murphy at the far end of the lobby counting the supplies they brought in that day, and Bill is in a chair behind a sandbag barrier guarding the front door. Nate joins Sturges at the front desk who is typing away on a console connected to a ham radio. "So what are you doing with that radio?" Nate asked.

Sturges enters the command on his computer and addresses Nate. "I've been trying to get in contact with the group we sent out to the Super-Duper Mart we passed on our way here."

"When did you send them?" He askes..

Sturges takes on a somber tone. "It's been four days. We lost contact with them two day ago. At first we thought they went dark since they are operating so close to Corvega Raider territory. But . . ."

"But what?" Nate asks.

Bill is now standing in front of the desk. "But then that asshole Gristle comes through on our radio signal taunting us. We presumed them dead."

Sturges stands up strait and stares daggers at Bill. "You don't know that. Hollis told us they are alive, and that's enough for me!"

Bill keeps his composure, "You are holding onto a false hope Sturges and the sooner you accept that . . ."

Hollis and Preston burst through the doors of the museum dragging in a heavily wounded woman. "Everyone move! Clear off that table!" Marcy darts over to the weapons table and clears it off. Hollis and Preston hoist the young woman onto the table.

Marcy yells across the room, "Kyle bring me my med-kit hurry!" She immediately rips the woman's shirt open and begins to apply pressure to the wound on her lower abdomen.

Sturges darts to the table alongside Marcy with his heart about to jump out of his chest. "Oh my god it's Emma!" He adds pressure to the wound on her leg. Sturges turns to Preston. "What happened?"

Kyle returns with the med kit and Marcy rips it open.

"We found her crawling up the back side of the museum, She been shot up pretty bad."

Marcy cuts everyone off. "Shut up, Preston run upstairs and bring me some purified water now!" Emma is barley responsive. Marcy pulls out a Stimpack and jams it into her upper right shoulder. She gets to work on the hole in Emma's right side. "I'm going to need to get all the debris out of there." She pops open a bottle of rubbing alcohol and pores its contents into the opening. Emma lets out a bloodcurdling wail.

Emma grabs hold of Sturges's shirt, obvious that her breathing is labored. "They're . . . The raiders, they come for . . ." She passes out from the blood loss. Once Marcy gets the bleeding to stop she starts applying bandages to all of her wounds.

Mama Murphy walks up to Colonel Hollis. "Not now Mama Murphy."

"Hollis I've seen something very big, and very dangerous heading our way." Mam Murphy persists.

Hollis responds annoyed, "We all heard Emma. It's a group of raiders. So you can stop pretending that you have some sort of psychic powers."

"You are blind to what I see Hollis. Whatever it is that's headed our way. It's not a raider." Hollis brushers her aside. "Don't ignore me Hollis your men are not equipped to fight this kind of enemy."

Not more than five seconds pass and gun fire erupts outside. Preston and Bill charge out of the Front door. Carmen, the look out on the third floor of the museum, yells out, "Contacts! On the main road!"

Hollis turns to the trio surrounding Emma. "Sturges take Emma and the others to the third floor." He then looks at Nate. "Nathan we could really use another gun."

Nate's mind is raising. Though all he has to do is slip out the back to avoid all this, every fiber in his body tells him he can't just abandon these people after everything they have done for him. "Alright, I'll help."

Mama Murphy grabs Nate's left arm. "Carful kid, don't be a hero out there just focus and aim right for the eye of death." Not sure what she is getting at. Nate just takes it as a farewell and nods.

 _"Nathan move to the left don't let them cut through the shop!"_

Nate jumps from his cover and charges into the shop. The raiders' attacks are unorganized. He can definitely tell what ever training these raiders have is very poor. They mostly dart into the open to take their shots. Nate pops up from cover and dispatches a raider with his hunting rifle. He takes cover as raiders riddle his position with bullets. Preston fires his musket and misses the shot. Carmen spots a raider on the balcony of a white building a blows apart his head with her musket. Bill brakes from cover a fires his musket wide but due to his luck it strikes a raider in the leg and sends him to the ground.

"Preston, move to the roof of the shop on the left use the high ground to flank them!" Preston darts from cover and emerges on the roof just in time to fire his musket into the head of a raider trying to climb over the barricade. Nate pops from cover again and fires a .308 round that pierces one raider's head and stops inside the chest of another.

A raider charges for Nates Position while he chambers another round. The raider jumps on top of him and their weapons are tossed across the room. Nate manages to use the raider's weight as leverage and wrap his right leg around the raiders head. With one swift motion he hears the ear splitting crack of the raider's neck. Nate grabs the raider's weapon, since it was the closest to him, and pulls the trigger at the raiders rushing his position. The pipe weapon releases a salvo of rounds killing two more raiders.

Nate grabs his rifle and takes aim, however the earth around him begins to shake. It's as if the battle is put on hold, and all small arms fire stops. Even all the raiders' attention is drawn to the noise. Hollis stands and his heart stops as he recalls Mama Murphy's words. An explosion erupts from the end of the street and a deafening roar explodes out. The creature stands a staggering ten feet tall with horns protruding from its head, its hands have massive claws, and its body is completely covered in scales. All the raiders who just a moment ago were hell bent on killing them are now tumbling over the debris on the street in terror.

"GET INSIDE THE MUSEUM NOW!" Both Nate and Preston don't hesitate. The Deathclaw starts flailing its arms back and forth butchering everything its path. Some raiders choose to fight but are quickly killed. The Deathclaw even hoists one raider above its head and rips him in half. When Preston and Nate finally make it inside they close the door behind them and everyone starts barricading the door with everything they can find. They can hear the raiders piling up outside and banging on the door.

With just about every piece of furniture they can find up against the door, the four men wait at the opposite end of the lobby training their weapons on the door. They can hear the screams of the raiders start dwindling and the banging on the door is no more. Nothing but silence great the four men. Carmen takes up a firing position on the balcony overlooking the lobby. Preston, Bill, Hollis, and Nate hold their breath as they focus on the door.

Bill lets out a sigh. "Looks like it's go. . . "

The door to the museum explodes open and everyone unleashes a salvo onto the Deathclaw.

Nate takes aim with his rifle and time around him almost comes to a complete stop. 'What is this? This feels incredible.'

Then Mama Murphy's words echo in his head. '. . . just focus and aim right for the eye of death.' He looks down his sight and focuses in on his target then pulls the trigger. The .308 round sails through the air and enters the Deathclaw through its eye, then its skull, and then its brain.

Time speeds back up and the Deathclaw collapses to the ground letting out its last breath.

Nate stands up. "What the hell was that?"

Hollis's jaw hit the floor. Everyone but Nate have their weapons aimed at the dead creature. Hollis approaches the creature, and looks at the wound in its eye socket. 'How is that even possible?' He then looks up at the Nate the only one with a ballistic weapon. "How did you do that?"

Nate looks around at the bewildered minutemen. "I just aimed at the eye of death."

Mama Murphy is now standing at the bottom of the stairs and she slowly walks over to Nate. "You did good kid. Not many people have taken my advice." She then looks at Hollis. "If I were you, I would be taking notes." She then proceeds to brush away the dust on Nates shoulders. "Your son is out there kid. I can feel it."

Nate grabs hold of Mama Murphy's arms and takes them off his shoulders. "That doesn't make sense, if I was in that pod for over two centuries who's to say he isn't already gone."

"I can feel his energy kid. Yours and his are connected. The bond you two have is strong." She pauses for a moment. "Go to Diamond City. There you will find the heart that will lead you to your boy."

Nate looks at the woman as if she had two heads. This Diamond city had to have been a post war settlement. "Diamond City? Where is Diamond City?"

"Cross the river and follow the signs to the bright heart." Mama Murphy looks at Nate with a smile. He has to admit that the smile was less than comforting.

At this point Hollis has had enough, "If you ask me, I think it was just blind luck that she guessed the attack."

Nate shifts where he stands. 'What did she mean by the bright heart?'

"I can tell you are skeptical about what I said." Mama Murphy begins to walk away and turn her head.

" _You'll find your son kid. I've seen it!"_


	5. Returning the Favor

Chapter 5

"Returning the Favor"

Nate enters the room on the third floor. Hollis and Marcy are next to the couch where Emma is resting on. "Let me know when she wakes up."

Marcy nods and Hollis turns to address Nate. "Will she make it?"

"She'll be all right. My men have been put through much worse."

Nate lets out a sigh. "I never got the chance to thank you guys for the rescue."

Hollis raises his hand to stop Nate in his tracks. "No, you have done enough. The way you fought out there. I'd never expect a vault dweller to have so much combat experience."

"I served as a lieutenant in the Sino-American war. I never thought I'd have to fight like that again."

"So it's true then, you must be the most well preserved I ghoul I have ever met." Hollis said with a surprised tone.

"Ghoul? Marcy's kid called me that yesterday." Nate pointed out.

"Ah, it'd be easier to show you." Hollis opens the door of the balcony and asks Carmen to introduce herself. The woman has on tattered jeans a green flannel shirt and a gasmask that covers her whole face. The first thing that Nate notices is the fact that she has no hair.

"Nate, this is Carmen. She is irradiated and looks very different from you and me. But she is still a person."

Carmen removes the gas mask and the shock on Nates face is not lost on Hollis. "Why do you hide your face?" Nate asked.

Carmen responds in a gravelly voice. "Because many of you smooth skins can't handle the beauty of a ghoul."

"Thank you Carmen you can go back to your watch." She places her mask back on and returns to the balcony.

"Why the attitude?" Nate asked.

Hollis let out a sigh, "She's not very trusting of outsiders. We picked her up on way here from Quincy. Her group was ambushed just outside of Jamaica plane."

Now Nate looked confused, "Her group?"

"Look, Minutemen for the past few months have been on the decline. When we picked her up, she told us that her group was on their way to Quincy when they were ambushed by a Mercenary group called the Gunners." Hollis paused before speaking again, "The same group that attacked Quincy."

Nate listens to Hollis in shock. This world is so much more different than the one he left. What else is out there? He will worry about that later.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea." Nate responds with a somber tone.

"That's not the worst part, Carmen was a runner from a settlement called The Slog. She told us that my group was the only one she had encountered in weeks."

Nate stands in complete silence. "So you guys came to Concord on foot from Quincy?"

"Yes, and the journey wasn't pretty. A month ago there were twenty of us. Now we're eight. I hope to settle these people in a place called Sanctuary."

Nate let out a chuckle. "That's where my family used to live. What do you plan to do after that?"

"I don't truly know. But I can't give up on my men. . . The Minutemen."

There is a long pause and Nate speaks up. "Well, I should probably get going."

"I know, Preston told me what happened to you in that vault. Which is why I can't let you leave."

"What?" Nate said with a confuse look on his face.

"I can't let you leave, not alone. I've ordered Preston to join you. One thing you need to know about the Minutemen, is that we always help out our friends."

Nate has a look of utter surprise and then it gives way to relief. At least he won't be going at this alone. "Thank you Hollis."

They exit the room and join Preston in the lobby. Sturges has already packed up his radio and Kyle is helping Mama Murphy pack up all their supplies.

"Sturges go help Marcy bring Emma down, I'll take care of things down here." They approach the front desk of the lobby, and Hollis picks up a laser musket and a tricorn militia hat. He dusts off the Hat and hands them over to Nate.

"These belonged to Jim, he was killed in one of the raider attacks before you got here. Take them as a gift, Jim would want them to be put to good use."

Nate places the hat on his head as he begins to inspect the weapon with curiosity. It is a long weapon that has the barrel of a laser rifle mounted on a modified musket. What catches Nates eye is the crank lever on the butt end of the gun.

Hollis holds his musket up, and shows Nate how to use it. "One crank and you can take a limb or two off. Six cranks and you can blow a hole through a set of old world power armor." Hollis leans his rifle against the desk. "Crank it any more than six times and you set it to explode on a timer for as many seconds as cranks you give it."

Nate betrays a small grin after a quick test fire. "Oh yea, I can do some damage with this."

Hollis walks around the desk to pick up a back pack and hand it to Nate. "Mama Murphy told you to go to Diamond City right?" Nate nods. "Well that's not going to be easy. There are three raider gangs between here and the Great Green Jewel."

Preston and Nate both let out a sigh.

"You will have to take quite the detour to get around them. If you have a smooth trip it will take you about three days." Hollis leads Nate and Preston out of the museum.

Bill presents Preston with his arm and Preston takes hold of it. With a hard tug the two of them embrace. "You come back to us in one peace, you understand?"

Preston pats his friend on the back, "I will, I promise."

As Nate and Preston set off down the main street, Hollis grabs their attention. "Oh and Lieutenant Adams!" Nate stops in his tracks. He hasn't been called that in a long time.

" _That's one of my men you have there. Don't let him out of your sight."_

Preston and Nate walk south east for the better part of an uneventful day, aside from running into a few bloat flies and the occasional mole rat. They set up camp on a hill overlooking a powerline tower just west of Lexington.

"This is a good spot." Preston says as he sets up a camp sit next to the campfire and each have a helping of Blamco Mac'n Cheese.

"I never did get the chance to thank you." Nate spoke.

Preston tosses his empty box into the fire. "Think nothing of it. I saw someone who needed help, so I did what anyone should do."

"Should do?" Nate asks. He knows things are pretty bad out here, as if getting shot at wasn't enough to prove that.

"Look too many people out there are only in it for themselves. Most folks out here don't care about their neighbor. Some don't even realize how much damage they can do to people." Preston says as he cleans his musket.

"How long have you been with Hollis?" Nate inquired.

"I've been part of Hollis's group for a long time. Since I was seventeen. When I was just a kid I worked with my folks in a settlement far up north."

"Have you ever gone to visit them?" Nate continued.

Preston takes on a somber tone. "Not exactly."

From the way Preston reacted he can tell that this is a touchy subject. "I was still in bed when the raiders came pounding on the gate. It was a bloodbath, the towns people had been refusing to give up everything they worked hard for." He paused for a second, "The raiders, they just kept coming, a friend of mine managed to get us out through the back gate. We just ran, and the plume of smoke could be seen for miles."

Silence consumes the moment for a while before Nate speaks up. "Is your friend still . . . you know?"

Preston put his musket down and looked at Nate, "Yes, in fact you've already met him."

Then Nate remembers the moment just before they left the museum. "Bill?"

Preston sighs. "That's right, He's saved my life more times than I can count."

Sensing that the conversation had reached a standstill Nate takes hold of his rifle,

" _Right well I'll take first watch then."_

That night Nate is taken back to the military ball he attended before being shipped off to Anchorage. . . Nate is wearing his dress uniform, and sitting at a table talking to his friend Mike.

"Man just do it. You two have been together since high school prom." Mike says.

Nate's heart was pounding in anxiety, "I know, I know. It's just . . ."

"It's just what?" He scoots in closer, "Man we're going to be shipped out in two weeks to kick red ass and you my friend can't muster the courage to ask one simple question?" Mike takes a swig from his glass. "You're meek."

Nate gives in, "Fine, fine you win. Just give me till after the dance."

"That's what I thought. Now go get her." Mike got up and heads for the floor where his date waited for him.

Nate finds Nora sharing a glass of wine with a few of her colleagues from her classes in Cambridge. She is wearing a dark red dress with red lipstick to match. Nate approaches her and offers her his hand to follow him. As He takes her across the ball room she looks back at her friends who are all shooting her thumbs up and claps.

For that night nothing else matters to them. As they dance Nate takes in the full beauty of his lover. The light reflects off her eyes in a way that makes it look like beautiful star clusters. Her lips are smooth and her skin is perfect. "You are so beautiful, have I ever told you that?"

She takes in his subjugating facial features, and the feel of his excellent muscle tone through the fabric of his uniform. "Only about a thousand times a day."

After the dance Nate pulls her out onto the balcony overlooking Boston. His hands are shaking as they stand there looking at the lights of the city. After a while they share a passionate kiss. He pulls away and spots Mike looking at him through the window taping his watch.

He rolls his eyes. 'Ok. OK.'

He must have said that out load because Nora has on a puzzled look.

He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little black box. Nora places her hands over her mouth in complete shock.

Nate gets down on one knee and presents the brilliant ring to her. "Nora Chamberlain" She is now in tears.

" _Will you marry me?_

His dream washes away and Nate wakes up to the smell of ash in the air. He sits up to see a large plume of smoke rising from the west. Nate lets out a cough. "Preston what happened?"

"About an hour into my watch a group of about seven people came charging out of the brush to the east. I put out the fire to keep us from being seen." The smell of ash is heavy in the air and Preston coughs to clear his throat.

"We should probably go check it out." Nate says half-heartedly. The truth is Nate just wants to get to Diamond City, every minute he wastes is a minute where his son is in danger. But that would go against everything he fought for before the bombs. His decision is made. If someone is in need of help he won't ignore it He can' ignore it!

" _Let's take this slow if those were raiders, then there is a good chance they're still there."_

Earlier that night Connie Abernathy stirs awake from a sound of shuffling feet outside. Their house is built using wood walls and a power line tower as the foundation. "Dad?" She gets up and makes her way to the front door. "Dad, is that you?"

Blake bursts through the front door startling Connie. He slams the door shut behind him and proceeds to grab his double barrel shotgun. "Go get your sister and get out the back door, hurry there's no time!"

"Dad, what's going on?" Bullets start to fly through the wooden walls of the house. Connie ducts and lets out a scream.

Blake rushes over to his daughter, "Grab your sister and get out of here!" Connie crawls over to the opposite end of the house as more bullets slam through the house.

Connie grabs hold of Lucy who is cowering in the corner of the room. "Come on we have to go!" She grabs two .44 snub nose revolvers and practically drags her sister out of the house.

When they reach the power line tower west of their house they stop to catch their breath. "Where are we going?" Lucy blurts out.

"Not me you. Take this." She hands Lucy one of the revolvers "Now run! Get to the safe house and wait for me there ok?"

"What are you doing?" Lucy exclaims.

"I'm going back for dad!" Connie said.

"Connie no!" Without warning she hugs her sister.

"I'll be ok, just trust me!" With tears running down Lucy's eyes they embrace one last time and Connie runs back to the farm.

"I'm not going to ask you again old man, where are they?" Blake had managed to kill two raiders with his shotgun before being over powered. The black man standing before Blake is adorned in a full suite of leather armor. His Face is painted over with white tribble markings making it look more like a skull.

Jared reaches down and plants a right hook into his face causing Blake's nose to brake. With blood running down his face he looks the raider in the eye, and spits in his face.

"So that's how it's going to be huh?" Jared forcefully grabs a torch from one of his raiders. "If you won't talk then I'll just rid the commonwealth of this pitiful farm." He tosses the torch into the house through a window and within seconds the whole house is engulfed in flames. "Now tell me where they are!"

Blake lifts his head in defiance. "Fuck you!"

A gun shot is heard which causes everyone to jump. "What the hell?" Blake's heart is racing out of control. Has someone come to help him? Two more shots ring out killing the raider on Blake's left. "What the hell? Everyone spread out and find them!"

More gunshots go off in the distance. A brief moment of silence ensues.

Connie struggles against her attacker but the raider's strength over powers her and he knocks her to the ground.

What Blake sees next cause his heart to skip a beat. One of the raiders is dragging a bloodied Connie up to Jared, "I found one of them!"

"Ah, finally bring her over to me!" Jared looks at Connie like a ravenous dog looks at a peace of meet.

"Tie him up! I'm going to enjoy this!" The raiders drag Blake over to a post and ties his hands behind his back. Jared brings Connie over to face her father.

Connie has an open wound on her forehead and tears are pouring out of her eyes. "It's going to be ok sweetie, you understand just look at me!" Jared leans down to put his face just next to Connie's.

"Sweetie you have to be strong ok, be strong for me, I'll get us out of this." Blake can no longer hide the fear in his eyes.

Blake then looks at Jared, "If you hurt her I'll kill you!"

Jared licks the blood off the side of Connie's face. She strains her head in a vain attempt to pull away. "You know I like them young and feisty!"

With fear in her eyes she stares back at her father. "Daddy?" Her plea for help cause Blake's heart to drop ten stories and he loses his composure entirely.

"LET HER GO! LET HER GO RIGHT NOW YOU BASTARD!"

Jared pulls Connie back and plants his fist into her stomach nocking the wind out of her. "That's for hiding from us!"

"MOTHER FUCKER I'LL KILL YOU! YOU BASTARD I'LL KILL YOU!" Blake starts violently flailing his body on the post he is strapped to, trying in vain to escape.

Jerad stands over Connie and kicks her repeatedly, not aiming for any specific part of her body. "This is for killing my men!" He then picks her up begins to hit her face knocking her unconscious.

Tears are now streaming down his face and blood out of his nose as he struggles against the post. "LET HER GO YOU BASTARD I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!"

The raiders all laugh in unison at the desperate man. Once Jared finishes with Connie he tosses her to the side, and plants a knife into Blake's kidney. He lets out a blood curdling scream.

Jared leans in to look Blake in the eye. "What was it you said?" he then gives the knife a violent twist and all the air escapes Blake's lungs. "You'll kill me?" he then rips it out letting the blood pore out of the wound. "I don't think so."

"What should we do with him sir?" one of the raiders asks with a hint of fear.

Jared looks at the defeated man and smirks.

" _Set him on fire like the rest of the house."_

Nate and Preston approach the burning building from the west. The smell of death and ash weighs heavy in the air.

"There was definitely a fight here last night." Nate finds a raiders body with two holes in his chest. "Preston, over here I found something!" He got no reply. He calls for him again but when he looks up he sees Preston in the distance staring at a woman on her knees.

"Preston?" Nate says as he approaches him. He can see tears welling up in his eyes.

Nate approaches the young girl who is sitting over a burned corps. "Uh, hey are you uh, ok?"

The woman shoots up from the ground and proceeds to attack Nate with all her strength. "Whoa! Hey calm down I'm not here to hut you!" The woman continues her assault only to be grabbed from behind by Preston.

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" she continues to flail her limbs in a vain attempt to escape.

"You need to calm down, we're here to help you!" finally the woman relents and Preston sets her down. "Now can you tell me what happened here?"

She sits silently on the earth for a long while before speaking. "They, they took her.

Nate then sits down next to the girl. "Who? Who took her?"

The woman remains rattled, "And they . . . they" The woman breaks down into tears and places her head onto her knees. "It was horrible . . ."

Nate is filled with absolute sadness and shock as the woman recants the event of the night before. Preston on the other hand is filled with rage. When they finish Preston stands and proceeds to kick one of the raider corpses that lay on the ground behind them. "We were so close! WE COLD HAVE SAVED THEM! GOD DAMN IT WE COULD HAVE SAVED THEM! WE WERE RIGHT THERE!" He then fires his musket at full charge into the corps of the dead raider reducing it to glowing ash.

Nate gets up, "There is nothing we could have done Preston, there is no way we could have known."

"You don't get it! I saw them running up the hill! I saw them going in this direction!" Preston is now in Nates face and the rage is very clear in his eyes.

"Well throwing a tantrum about it isn't going to help either!" Nate yells out.

Preston lets out a guffaw, "You're god damn right! We are going after them and killing every last one of them!"

Nate stops Preston in his tracks as he starts marching in Lexington's direction, "Hold up let's take care of the girl first."

Preston relents and lets out a sigh. "Right, let's make this quick."

They both turn to address her, however Lucy has adorned herself with a full set of leather armor and her father's double barrel shotgun. All the fear that was in her eyes has turned to determination. They both look at Lucy with mixture of shock and confusion.

Then Lucy speaks, "I'm going with you. We're going to get my sister back. I only have one request."

Nate and Preston look at each other then back at Lucy.

With pure rage in her eyes she says, "You leave that bastard Jared to me!"


	6. A Mad House

Chapter 6

"A Mad House"

When Preston, Lucy and Nate arrive at Lexington they set up a camp on the top floor of a partially collapsed parking garage. Nate uses a set of binoculars to scope out the bridge overlooking the Corvega car factory. It became clear to Preston that raider activity spiked after word about the Quincy Massacre had spread. The bridge is bustling with raider activity, from chem usage to drunken fights.

Nate spots a group of raiders exiting the factory with about three slaves in tow. "Are any of them your sister?" He hands the binoculars to Lucy.

"No" she says somberly. Clearly this is going to be much harder than she thought. She pulls the binoculars away from her face. Even if they manage to get past all the raiders, who is to say her sister is still alive? She pushes those thoughts out of her head.

Nate notices the young woman's expression. "Hey, don't worry. We'll get her out of there. Preston will be back soon, and we will be able to come up with a plan." Nate was hesitant about taking Lucy along at first, but he couldn't help but notice the similarities in their situation. Her father was murdered and her sister taken. The look on her face when they left Abernathy farm told him that she would stop at nothing to get her back. It didn't take him long to agree.

It is just after sun down and Nate notices the raiders on the bridge starting to disperse. The raiders are whooping a hollering as they make their way into the den of raiders. "Hey Lucy, I think we may have an opening." Nate peers into his binoculars and sees three raiders come out of the front entrance clearly drunk. 'There is defiantly a large party going on in there.' Nate thought to himself.

Preston makes his way up behind them causing Lucy to jump. "Sorry, I needed to be quiet. The whole town was crawling with raiders and ferals." The trio sit down as Preston removes his hat. "They have three forward camps, one on the bridge, one just east of here and one on the other side of the factory."

"They just left a skeleton crew on the bridge." Nate adds, "What about the camp to the east?"

"I counted seven raiders in the building." Nate is in deep thought as he formulates a plane.

"They also have a power armor frame." Preston chimes.

This only sends chills up Nates spine as he remembers the destructive power of the armor. The frame alone is enough to give whomever is wearing it an advantage. "If we take out that camp we can sneak in through the side gate."

"What about the raiders on the catwalks?" Lucy askes.

"We should be fine as long as we stay out of the spots lights." Nate looks at his Pipboy. 'Two fifteen.'

" _Here is what we are going to do."_

Jared stands in the control room overlooking the assembly line that still contains the frames of the once sought after Corvega sports car. He looks over his Kingdome with pride. The cages in the middle of the room have been stripped of machinery and were now being used as a fighting pit.

Down below the raiders not on watch congregate in the middle of the factory floor. Ever since the Minutemen were wiped out, his gang was able to facilitate a powerful grip over all the north eastern settlements of the Commonwealth. The biggest score was the federal stockpile to the west. After his gang captured it, raiders from all around started joining his crew. Though most joined out of fear, this did not matter to Jared.

He looks over the crowd below with triumph, as he raised his hands. The crowd below is going wild. While some raiders are too drunk to stand others are helping themselves to jet and other chems. A repeating _thud_ sound can be heard coming from the rooms bellow the control room.

As Jared looks over his subjects there is only one way he could describe the whole scene. "It's a mad house down there!" He turns to look at his second in command, Lonnie. ". . . and I love it!" He yells. Jared snatches the beer from Lonnie and chugs it before throwing the bottle across the room.

He looks at her with hunger in his eyes. "Has Gristle returned with our prize yet?"

Lonnie shifts her gaze downward. "Well . . . uh. . ."

"Uh what? . . . Spit it out!" He yells as he takes a hit of jet.

"One of his raiders came back and. . ." Lonnie pauses.

Jerad becomes annoyed and lunges at her, "AND?" He is in her face and he begins to walk forward forcing Lonnie to step backwards right into a counter top.

She struggles to find the words, "And he said that Gristle was killed."

Without warning Jared backhands Lonnie sending her to the ground.

"He said it was the Minutemen." She manages to breathe out.

To say Jared is angry would be an understatement. He plants his foot firmly into her stomach causing the wind to be knocked out of her. "What the hell! They are supposed to be dead!" He screams as he walks back to the window overlooking the factory floor.

Lonnie hoists herself up by grabbing hold of the countertop. "The raider did mention that Wolfgang was there, but managed to get away."

"What the hell was that mutt doing near MY SCORE!" Before Lonnie got full control of her breath Jared has closed the distance between them. He now holds her by the neck with his face right next to hers as he breaths one word at a time.

" _WHERE. . . IS . . . THAT . . . MONGREL?"_

Nate firs his laser musket at the raider in the power armor sending him over the side of the catwalk. The fall alone wouldn't have killed the raider, but unfortunately for him he landed on his head caving it in. "That's the last one."

While Nate and Lucy made their way up the stairs Preston killed the two raiders on bridge and perched himself overlooking the unsuspecting raider camp. Remarkably no one saw him as he fired at the raiders. The fight didn't last long, and Lucy only had to fire her shotgun twice. The trio meet up on the east end of the bridge. This gives them a clear view of the side entrance. To their surprise there are no guards.

Rancid is the only word that comes to Nates mind as he pulls the raider armor over his head. Soon the three of them have on the captured raider armor as planned. Since they are going under cover they decide to hide their laser weapons near the generators just outside the side entrance, and use the pipe pistols that the raiders are using. "Alright guys stay close and don't do anything to piss anyone off." Nate turns to Lucy, "Are you ready?"

Lucy's breathing indicates that she was terrified. "Yea, I'm ready." She takes a deep breath, "Let's just find her and get out of here."

"No!" Preston says firmly. "We get all the slaves out of here!"

Nate looks at him with shock. "Preston, There is no way we can get everyone out alive. . . "

"There is ALWAYS a way!" Before anyone could protest Preston storms inside.

A shocked Nate charges in after him with Lucy in tow. 'This man is going to get us killed.' He thinks as they make their way into the raider den.

What the three of them see is nothing short of repulsive. No one seems to pay them any attention as they make their way through the crowd. One raider is so drunk that he falls over in front of Nate causing him to trip and fall into a rather tall raider. "HEY! Watch where you're going!" The angry raider turns and shoves Nate into a group of raiders and soon the crowed parts forming a circle around them.

Lucy and Preston become separated from their comrade, and the festivities don't seem to die down. In fact the crowd begins to chant. The two of them desperately try to get a glimpse of what is going on. Then the crowd let out a loud roar of approval. Preston fears the worst as he and Lucy carve their way through the crowd. What they see next send their jaws to the floor. Nate had just knocked a raider unconscious, and another is charging at him. Nate easily dodges the drunken attack and slams his knee into the raider's stomach. Another roar of approval erupted from the crowd as Nate makes his way back to his friends.

"That was . . . a pretty amazing display!" Preston says.

Nate is rubbing the side of his jaw from the left hook the first raider managed to get off.

" _Right . . . Let's just find Connie and move on."_

Jared had witnessed the entire spectacle from the control room. 'Now there is a man that can take care of himself.' He thinks to himself. He turns to Lonnie. "Bring him to me." Lonnie Nods, and marches out of the room. Jerad takes a drink from the bottle in his hand.

" _So that gate is all that is keeping a horde of ferals from flooding the place?"_

Preston asks the lone raider standing guard. It turns out that the old sewer pipe is crawling with feral ghouls, and the only thing keeping them out of the factory is a terminal controlled floodgate. Preston turns to walk up the maintenance tunnel with a sinister grin.

Nate and Lucy decide to go and find out where the slaves were being held, but it doesn't take long. The slaves are located in a room on the south side of the building. Surrounding the room are a series of catwalks with only one ramp leading down into the slave pit. It is guarded by three raiders, one standing on the catwalk overlooking some conveyer belts and the other two are walking up the ramp from the slave pit.

The slaves are all in various states of health, though most look as if they have been beaten within an inch of their life. Nate's blood begins to boil when he sees that each of the slaves have a collar around their necks. Nate recognizes the hardware. The U.S. army used these as a way to control POW's during the Sino American war. At the time of the war he was grateful for their invention, only now his job had become much more complicated. If they work anything like they did during the war, there was no way he was going to get them all out of this building alive. Nate struggles to find a solution.

Nate would have been content with just rescuing Connie, but there was no way Preston would go along with that. Nate curses himself, these people need his help and there was no way he was going to condemn these people to a life of slavery.

Nate leans closer to Lucy, "Do you see her anywhere?"

Lucy's heart is racing. She can't see her sister anywhere. Were they too late? Had the raiders already sold her off, or worse?

Her train of thought is cut off, "Hey you!" The two turn to address the potential threat.

"The boss wants a word with you!" Lonnie makes her way over to the two of them. Lucy is visibly tens and Nate is doing everything in his power to hold his composure.

"Yea well take a number, I'm busy!" Nate grabs Lucy by the arm and walks passed the now angry raider.

"Hey scab! That wasn't a request!" Lonnie has her gun drawn and before Nate can respond he is tackled to ground by a raider that seemed to jump out of the shadows.

A brief struggle ensues and Nate is overpowered by the behemoth of a man that is attacking him. This raider is the largest man he has ever seen and he has the strength to match. "You think you can get away with turning down the boss like that scab?"

Lonnie reaches into her coat and pulls out a slave collar. "Just in case you get any ideas!" The two raiders drag Nate out of the room, leaving behind a visibly shaken Lucy.

Lucy's hope of finding Connie is dissolving into despair. Nate was taken from her and she hated herself for not doing anything to stop the raiders. Hopelessness is beginning to consume her, but then she remembers that Preston had gone off to the basement when they split.

Once again her train of thought is cut off, but this time by one of the raiders guarding the slaves. "Well, aren't you a pretty thing?"

The raider must have noticed her shock because he immediately put his arm around her. The smell of the raider is unpleasant to say the least. "Hey, don't worry! Why don't you and I go find a quiet place for the night?"

Lucy doesn't like the sound of that and she stutters her response, "I. . . I think . . . I'll find my own place." She quickly darts out from under his arm.

"Playing hard to get huh?" The raider charges forward and grabs her by the chest plate. "No need to be shy!"

Lucy begins to fight him off as he drags her into one of the side rooms, but the other guards have joined in to subdue her. The raiders have Lucy almost completely striped down when one of the raiders heads explode. One raider turns with utter shock, "WHAT THE. . ." he too meets the same fate. The last raider goes for his .308 hunting rifle, but Preston puts three bullets into his chest killing the raider.

Preston walks over to Lucy who was desperately putting the raider armor back on. He speeks with a soft voice, "Please tell me you're ok." As he got down to her level.

The sincerity in his voice is enough to calm her. "Yea, I'm ok." She holsters her shotgun, "Where did you go?"

"I'll tell you about it later, where is Nate?"

Lucy's eye begin to tear up. "They . . . they have him! He has Nate!"

Preston curses under his breath. 'Things just got a lot more complicated.' "I have a plan that will give us and the slaves a chance to get out of here in one piece. Come on we have to get moving."

 **Note: I'm sorry this took so long. Life started getting in the way and I had a hard time piecing together this chapter. I wanted to give the characters more depth especially the raiders. I tried to focus on who the characters were and how they would react to stressful situations.**

 **At the minimum I will try to upload one chapter a month and let you guys know if I run into troubles again. As always let me know what you guys think. Any suggestions would be great, and would help me pump out more chapters in the future.**


	7. Descent into Chaos

Chapter 7

"Descent into Chaos"

Nate is dragged into the control room and placed into a char opposite of the window that overlooks the factory floor. The party going on outside the room can be heard as muffled white noise. Jerad is standing at the window with a bottle in his right hand.

Lonnie motions for the large raider to stand outside the door then she takes a step forward towards her boss. "We have him, Just like you asked!" She says with a hint of fear in her voice.

Jerad turns to look at his prize, "Lonnie. . ." he says in a low tone. "Why is our guest wearing a collar?" Lonnie tenses up as Jared approaches her. "Would you please . . . REMOVE IT?!" He delivers his justice with a swift backhand across the face. Not enough to send her to the ground but enough to show his brutality in front of his guest.

It doesn't take long for Nate to decide that he does not like this man. However his request to have the collar removed came as a shock. At first he thought that he had been caught and was about to be interrogated, but instead Jared extends his hand. "I saw your fight down there. Those morons had no idea what was coming to them!"

Nate hesitates at first but feels that now is not the time to make any wrong moves, and he takes the raiders hand. Jared jerks hard and pulls Nate out of the chair. He then turns to walk back towards his window. Nate uses this time to look around the room, there are two cages at one end of the room behind an old desk. The desk contains an assortment of chems and beverages, and on the other side of the room is a door leading out of the control room. Nate takes a long look into the cages and notices that there is only one occupant and she has a familiar face.

She has on a tattered dress that does little to cover her, and her body is covered with cuts and bruises. The expression on her face says a lot about what she had been through. The girl looks at Nate with both fear and anger. Nate takes a deep breath as he does everything in his power to stop himself from killing Jared where he stands.

Jared turns to see what Nate is looking at. "You like her too huh? I took a group out two nights ago to collect a debt from one of the worthless farms."

Nate looks at Jared who is now standing next to him. He hands Nate a bottle of whisky. "And what debt was that?"

"The worthless farmer had refused to give us his crop. I thought after feeding his wife a hand full of lead, he would have ponied up." Jerad takes a drag from a jet inhaler. "So I decided to pay a visit with a couple of my guys and take his girls as compensation for my troubles."

Nate is ready to put this man in the dirt, but once again he holds in his anger. Jared continues, "We only found this one though, the bitch said her sister died when my boys shot up the walls. So we burned the place down."

Nate realized long before he said that, the girl in the cage was Connie Abernathy, Lucy's sister. Swallowing his anger he asks, "I'm betting it was worth all the trouble huh?"

Jared had made his way over to the chair behind the desk and is now leaning back with his feet propped up. "Not really, she killed a couple of my guys. The bitch isn't even fun to play with, can't even put out." Jared takes another drag from the jet inhaler.

In that instant Nate's hand goes to his pipe pistol. He is ready to throw caution to the wind and place two in the raiders head, but then a knock on the door stops him in his tracks.

Lonnie opens the door and four raiders step through, however one of them has a slave collar around his neck. He is flanked by three raiders two of the raiders Nate recognizes almost immediately. His eyes shoot wide open as he looks into the eyes of both Preston Garvey and Lucy Abernathy. Preston takes a moment to look at his surroundings, desperate to find a way to get Nate out of the situation he is in. Lucy however is fixated on her sister who is now in complete shock. The last thing Connie had expected to see was her sister standing in the same room as her captor.

The two girls gaze at each other, and Connie's body shakes as fear begins to set in. 'What is she doing here? How the hell did she get into this nest of raiders?' More questions start to pop into her head. She wonders, she hopes that she isn't here alone.

The third raider who brandishes a bat steps forward, "Hey boss we have another present for yah!" The raider pushes their captive further into the room.

Jared jumps out of his chair like a giddy school girl, "Ah Wolfgang, it's good to see you are still alive!" The fear in Wolfgang's eyes was not lost on Jared. Nate thought the name sounded familiar but quickly pushed it out of his mind.

"Whatever it is man I. . ." Jared interrupted the raider by planting his fist firmly into is stomach sending Wolfgang to the ground.

Jerad stands over his pray, "It's been a long time my man, how's that new hide out of yours treating you?" From what Nate can gather, these two men had some bad history. Some most likely ending in bloodshed.

Wolfgang struggles to catch his breath, "Your men should know! They littered the place with the bodies of my guys! Why don't you ask them?"

Jared responds with a punch across the face. Wolfgang tastes metal in his mouth and spits it out, "One of my boys told me you were in Concord when Gristle's gang was wiped out. Do you mind telling me what happened?"

Nate is now looking at the beaten raider when the realization hits him. This is the man that shot him back in Sanctuary. Wolfgang's eyes now fall on Nate. All Wolfgang has to do is tell Jared who he is and everything would fall apart. Wolfgang begins to chuckle under his breath.

"What are you laughing at?" Jared barks.

After taking a second to compose himself Wolfgang responds, "Oh nothing, I just can't help but notice the irony in my current situation."

Jerad starts to lose what little patience he has, "If you don't start talking now, I'll have you put in the cage with the yao guai!"

Wolfgang shudders at the prospect of the idea. A yao guai is a ferocious mutated black bear, and are extremely territorial creatures. 'That's not how I plan to go out.' He thinks to himself.

"Well Jared, if you just paid a little more attention to the things going on around you and not your chems . . . " Jared draws his pipe pistol and whips Wolfgang across the face knocking out a tooth.

Wolfgang spits out more blood and continues, "The man responsible for Gristle's untimely death is right inside this room!" He then makes a gesture in Nate's direction, "I was trying to sell him before the Minutemen came in and slaughtered your guys!"

Jared looks at him with pure anger, "You moron! They followed you to my guys!" He then turns to give Nate an angry look, "Lonnie don't let the new guy out of your sight!"

Lucy is now in a panic. Any minute now Wolfgang will blow the whistle. Preston is scanning the room as his hand goes for his pistol. Nate follows suit and soon his hand grips around the handle of his gun. Lonnie does as she is told and slowly begins to raise her pipe rifle.

Then Wolfgang pipes up one last time. "You are probably too high to realize that the raider standing behind me is none other than Preston Garvey! ONE OF THE LAST MINUTMEN!" The revelation sucks the air out of the room.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Jerad barks.

"AH FUCK!" Lonnie screams.

Preston is shocked that the raider knows who he is, 'Oh Shi. . ' Deciding that now is a good a time as any. "TIMES UP!" he yells out.

Nate spins on his heal and tackles Jared to the ground. Lucy drops to the ground as the raider with the bat swings at her head. Lonnie aims her weapon to fire at Preston but he knocks it out of her hands at the last second. Connie is on her feet trying desperately to see her sister.

The scene before her is chaotic. Nate drives his knee into the raider leader, while Jared is desperately reaching for his gun. He plants his fist into Nates right cheek causing him to lose balance. Lucy still has her shotgun in hand, and aims it at the raider with the bat. The raider quickly descends on Lucy and she uses her shotgun to stop the bat in its tracks. The raider uses the extra time he bought to grab hold of the stock and barrel of the shotgun and then presses it up against Lucy's throat. The raider's strength is more than enough to overpower Lucy, and she can see the hunger in his eyes.

Wolfgang has managed to get his restraints undone and he begins to crawl over to the cages. Jared has pinned Nate to the ground and is now throwing punches at Nate's face. Nate is not new to fighting, but he is exhausted because he hasn't slept since the night of the Abernathy raid. The fight is a drain on him, and Preston isn't faring any better. Wolfgang's escape is not lost on Jared, "HEY IM NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!" This gives Nate the opening he needs and he grabs the raider by the hair and drives his fist into Jerad's face braking his nose.

Lucy is about to fall unconscious because of the raider's weight on her throat. Then a bat descends on the raider fracturing his skull. Wolfgang then drags the girl behind the desk, "Are you alright kid?" Lucy is in shock and out of breath.

Lonnie has Preston pinned on the ground with a knife inches from his chest. "Once you are dead, Wolfgang will take us to the rest of your pathetic group and wipe you minutemen from existence!"

Preston is holding her back with all of his strength. Lonnie is using all of her body weight trying to drive the knife through Preston's heart. "You . . . won't . . . win . . ." Preston used every ounce of energy he has and lifts the raider off his chest and drives his knee into her stomach. Then he uses the leverage to flip her over his head. When Lonnie opens her eyes she finds herself staring down the barrel of a twelve gage shotgun. The blast paints the floor with gray matter.

Nate and Jared are on their feet fighting right next to the window. Nate dodges a punch and uses the momentum to drive his fist into the raider's chin nocking the raider back into the window. The glass shatters and Jared flips over the edge onto the factory floor.

Pandemonium brakes out on the floor and one by one the raiders start taking pot shots at the control room. Preston rushes over to the door and the raider outside barges right in. The force of the door knocks him to the ground. The hulking raider doesn't have a chance to take in the scene before him and a .38 round flies through his forehead and out the back.

Everyone turns to see that it is Wolfgang who had fired the shot. Nate rushes over to the gang leader and plants a well-deserved right hook into his face. "What the hell man?"

Nate is fuming, "Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you!"

"Hey! I saved that Abernathy girl from that crazed raider! So pardon me but I don't intend on ending up like the rest of my guys!"

All the while the two sisters are reunited. Lucy uses the key from Lonnie's body to get the collar off of Connie's neck.

Connie turns and puts Lucy into a bear hug. "What are you doing here?! I thought I told you to stay at the safe house!" Connie says as tears stream down her cheeks. The shock of her baby sister being in her arms is enough to comfort her, but does little to stifle her sobs. 4

"After . . . they took you I thought . . . I thought for sure you were . . ." Lucy let the sentence go unfinished, and she too is beginning to break down into tears.

Connie grips her baby sister even tighter. "Me too, what he did to me . . . it was. . ." Connie paused, "I don't ever want you to go through that." The two sisters parted to look each other in the eye. Both of their eyes are blood shot and their cheeks are soaked in tears.

Lucy finds it hard to control her breathing, "I don't know what to without you sis. . ."She sobs. "Please don't ever leave me like that again!"

Connie pulls her sister in for another hug,

" _Don't worry sis, I wouldn't dream of it."_

Nate takes notice of the sisters in the corner of the room as the window gets peppered with more bullets. They are still in a bear hug, and Nates feels empathy for them. He wonders what it would be like once he finds his son. Would he break down into tears when he finally gets to hold his baby boy again?

Wolfgang shatters his train of thought by yelling over the commotion, "If you guys have a plan to get us out of here, now would be the time to act!" Wolfgang pokes his gun out the door and fires blindly, one bullet finds its mark and kills a raider.

Preston looked at his watch, 'Twenty seconds' he thought.

Nate makes his way over to Preston, "So what's the plan Preston?"

As if on que an explosion erupts from the bowels of the factory. The initial explosion kills a number of feral ghouls, but not enough to stifle the onslaught that follows. The raiders quickly turn their attention to the more imminent threat, and ghouls start flooding the factory. The first wave of ghouls are cut down fairly quickly but unfortunately for the raiders their weapons need to be reloaded at some point. Slowly the ghouls start to engulf the factory floor.

Preston and Nate have pipe pistols, Lucy has her shotgun, Connie grabs the pipe rife from Lonnie's corps, and Wolfgang has a 10mm pistol. The five of them exit the control room and make their way across the catwalks. None of the ghouls have made it up the ramps yet, so the five companions use the catwalks to get to the opposite end of the room before descending into the chaos.

Once there, everyone reads their weapons. "Preston you and I will go ahead of the group, Wolfgang will keep them off of our backs, Connie and Lucy stay close to us. Whatever you do don't stop for anything!"

Wolfgang was about to protest when a ghoul starts to charge at them. "FERAL!" Preston yells as he unloads his pistol. Nate pushes Connie out of the way just in time for the feral to flip over them. Lucy lets out a scream as Wolfgang pulls her out of the way, and Preston finishes the ghoul off.

Nate stands up and brushes himself off, "Alright let's go!" The five of them, descend into the chaos below. None of the raiders pay any attention to them. Most are just running for their lives while others were being swarmed by ghouls. One raider has killed three ghouls where he stands but another ghoul comes up behind him and slashes at his back severing his spine. His screams go unheard over the madness going on around them.

Nate fires his pistol into a ghoul ahead of him and Preston follows suit. Lucy unloads her shotgun into a ghoul that rushes them from the left and Connie fires a salvo from her pipe rifle into two ghouls that are rushing them from behind. Wolfgang's pistol goes dry and he curses as he reloaded.

"WE'VE GOT TO MOVE NOW!" Wolfgang yells. Without hesitating the five of them charge into the horde of raiders and ghouls. While Preston and Nate cut a path ahead of them, the sisters kept the ghouls from swarming their sides, and Wolfgang watches the rear.

Nate knows that the raiders will be piling up at the front door, so he chooses to lead his group back the same way they came in. Once outside Preston retrieves their gear from the generators, but the group doesn't get a chance to catch their breaths. The raiders from the camp behind the factory caught wind of them, and they start taking shots at them. Lucy once again let out a scream as Preston and Nate now use their laser muskets to put down the two raiders charging at them.

Seeing his chance Wolfgang abandons the group. Connie grabs Lucy's wrist and they run for the ramp leading out of town. Nate and Preston follow close behind them. The screams from the factory can still be heard as they run. When they get to the caved in pharmacy building just outside of town, the four of them collapse on the floor from exhaustion. It is still dark outside and the unintelligible noise from the factory is still audible.

Nate turns to Preston, "What about the other slaves?"

"Lucy and I told them to run once they heard the explosion." Preston says as he starts to prepare a fire.

He is just about to strike a match when Connie screams, "OH MY GOD LUCY!"

Nate turns his attention to the sisters and what he sees makes his heart stop. Lucy has a large bullet wound just left of where her heart should be, and plasma is beginning to poor out it. "nononononon Lucy, you stay with me!" Connie has her hands over the wound in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

Preston rushes over to the girl's side and administers a stimpack just above the wound, followed by a shot of medex. Nate hands Preston a bottle of rum he managed to find, and he pours out its contents over the wound. He then puts his fingers into the bullet hole and starts removing bullet fragments. Lucy let out bloodcurdling screams as Preston desperately does his work on the young girl.

Nate has seen this before, and memories from his days in Anchorage are threatening to surface.

Preston places bandages over the wound and uses his body weight to apply pressure, but Lucy just continues to bleed.

Connie holds Lucy's hand so tightly that her both their hands are turning pale. Lucy looks at her sister as she coughed up blood. Tears are welling up her eyes, and Connie can't stop herself from letting out a sob. "Don't leave me Connie . . . please don't let me go!" Lucy's voice cracks as she cries out.

Connie holds on to her sister's hand like her life depends on it. "I'm right here sis, I' not going anywhere." Her voice cracks as she reassures her.

Nate's heart breaks after witnessing the exchange. He walks over to Preston and places his hand on Preston's shoulder. Nate does nothing to stop him from his desperate attempts to save the young woman's life. Preston tosses aside the bloodied bandages and rips a strip of cloth from his own coat. He continues, "Come on, please stop!" he mutters with gritted teeth.

Lucy lifts her free hand and reached for Preston's coat, "Please. . ." She sobbed, "Don't let it take me." Her voice cracks again and her breathing is labored.

"You'll be ok sweaty, I've got you." Preston continues to apply pressure to the wound, but the bullet fragments have done their job flawlessly.

Lucy looks at her sister one last time, "Connie? I. . . I. . ."

Connie leans in, "I'm right here, I'm not leaving you!" she says with the most sincere tone she can muster.

"Connie, I'm. . . I'm not. . . I. . ." And just like that the light in her eyes fade away. Connie sits with her mouth gaped open. Tears are dripping from the edge of her mouth and nose. She starts to lose control, and her body begins to shake violently.

"NOOOOO!" Her outburst shakes Nate to his core. "LUCCCYYYY!"

" _When I get my hands on him, I will gut him myself!"_

Jared is now standing in an apartment complex just on the edge Lexington. One of his subordinate raiders was able to drag Jared to the roof of the factory and used the catwalks to bring him away from the building. Now he stands staring back at his kingdom in shambles. Everything he had worked so hard to achieve is now in ruin.

Jared paces over to the raider who saved his life. Now more than ever he wants to unleash his anger, but he decides that now is not the time. "Gather everyone that's left in Lexington. We are going on a hunt." With that, His new second in command marches out of the room.

With rage in his eyes Jared looks back over is smoldering kingdom. He is just about to take a puff from the jet inhaler when he pauses to think about everything that went wrong in his control room. He grippes the inhaler in hand and chucks out the window.

" _I want that Vault dwellers head on a spike!"_

 **Note: So Jared is still alive, and Lucy is now dead at the hands of his raider gang. I don't know how many of you liked Lucy's character, and I'm sorry that the story turned out this way if you did. [Que evil laugh]**

 **Ok, so I was able to pump out this chapter so quickly because the last chapter gave me a lot to think about. I also think that I glossed over the significance of Preston wanting to save the rest of the slaves. I was going to include a large elaborate plan for that, but I felt that I should really focus on the characters that matter. As for how Preston and Lucy managed to be part of the group dragging in Wolfgang, I may or may not explain it later on however I don't feel that it's too important of a detail. I also skipped over the tension between Wolfgang, Nate a Preston after Jared smashed through the window because I wanted to focus on the sisters (I hope I captured the love between two sister well). Does this mean that Connie will be an important character in the future?**

 **I'm open to suggestions as to where I should take this story next. Feel free to PM me any ideas you have, the help is always welcome. As always let me know what you guys think!**


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